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UPDATE: WASHINGTON AGAIN STALLS VETERANS'
MONEY -- Further analysis of the VA budget
battle on Capitol Hill.
For more on the VA budget, use the VA Watchdog
search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/ses
search.php?q=va+budget&op=ph
Story here...
http://www.nj.com/news/
gloucester/local/index.ssf?/base/new
s-7/1191655620258680.xml&coll=8
Story below:
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Washington again stalls vets' money
By Bill Cahir
Bill.Cahir@Newhouse.com
WASHINGTON -- Even when officials in Washington agree upon a top-tier
issue, such as the need to better fund the veterans' health care system,
they find ways to knock heads with each other and tie regular procedures
up in knots.
The veterans' health issue may be a case study in how the regular budget
process does not work.
House and Senate lawmakers have passed bills to significantly increase
funding for the health care system run by the U.S. Department of
Veterans Affairs.
But members of Congress haven't managed to find a way to negotiate a
final House-Senate compromise, or a final deal with the White House,
even though officials in both parties want to pump more cash into the
stressed veterans' health care system.
The House legislation would provide $43.2 billion for the U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs in fiscal 2008, an unheard-of increase of
$6.7 billion over last year.
The Senate draft would provide $43 billion for the VA, a $6.5 billion
boost.
The House bill passed in mid-June, 409-2. The Senate vote occurred in
early September, 92-1. But there are problems, as there have been for
eight years running.
The White House Office budget office has issued policy statements to
blast both the House and Senate bills for "an excessive level of
spending and other objectionable provisions."
President Bush, perhaps wary of vetoing a bill for veterans' health care
during the war on terrorism, did not threaten to nix either bill.
Instead, Bush demanded that lawmakers cut the added money they were
targeting towards veterans' health care from other programs. And he
urged them to stay within his budget cap of $933 billion for
discretionary programs.
Both the House and the Senate proposals surpassed the veterans' health
care request made by the president.
Bush had sought $39.4 billion for the VA for next year. That would be a
significant increase, but $3.8 billion less than provided by the House
bill and $3.6 billion less than appropriated in the Senate measure.
The calcified budget process is the culprit, according to officials
within the nation's leading veterans' service organizations.
"The current process is broken," said Steve Robertson, legislative
director for the American Legion. "This is a bipartisan bill. It passed
overwhelmingly in the House. It passed overwhelmingly in the Senate. And
the president said, I'm not going to veto it. Everything is in place
except one thing: The world of politics."
Democrats want to spend up to $22 billion more on discretionary programs
including education, children's health care, job training, farm
programs, water projects, roads and bridges, homeland security
initiatives, and scientific research than President Bush has proposed
for fiscal 2008.
Democrats claim that $22 billion is not a huge amount of money, at least
not in comparison to an estimated $12 billion per month that the
government is spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.
White House officials and lawmakers have not even begun talks to bridge
the discretionary spending gap. Instead, Members of Congress have passed
a bill to keep the government running through Nov. 16.
And so the delay in funding veterans' programs persists for roughly
1,400 VA health care facilities and 7.9 million enrolled veterans around
the country.
Joe Violante, legislative director for the Disabled American Veterans,
on Oct. 3 testified before a House committee about a budget plan favored
by eight groups representing the nation's veterans.
They would make VA health care funding part of the mandatory budget, a
federal entitlement that does not require an annual spending bill,
instead of part of the appropriations process.
Violante was not partisan in his testimony. He thanked lawmakers for
providing an emergency jolt of $1.8 billion for the VA health care
system in May. But he claimed that policies adopted in recent years to
limit spending were still causing problems for former warriors.
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Larry Scott --
